Pedagogiek - Volume 36, Issue 2, 2016

The impact of school inspection on the emotions and the professional self-understanding of teachers

The Flemish Inspectorate monitors and stimulates the quality of education on the basis of a system of school inspections. Research shows that these evaluations [assessments] have an important influence on the origin of emotions and can cause professional insecurity, anxiety and stress among teachers. Other studies report a change in the teachers’ professional self-understanding. This qualitative study investigates the impact of school inspections on the emotions and the professional self-understanding of secondary school teachers. Research data were collected through 16 semi-structured in-depth interviews in eight different schools. The emotional burden of the school inspection was confirmed by the teachers and various influences to the professional self-understanding of teachers has been clarified with the introduction of four typologies of reactions: ‘confident’, ‘action-oriented’, ‘shocked’ and ‘defeated’ teachers. At school level, the results show that schools with a high policymaking capacity fostered a positive perception of the audit. On the other hand, schools with low policymaking capacities struggled to moderate in the heavy emotional burden during a school inspection. These findings suggest that the three indicators of school policymaking capacities that are considered in this study (shared leadership, shared goal purpose and professional (supporting) relationships) are important to create a positive learning experience at a school inspection. The judgement of the Inspectorate has also a decisive impact on the teachers’ responses. The results show that a positive inspection judgement has a clear positive and affirmative influence on the professional self-understanding of teachers, while negative feedback puts their professional self-understanding to the test.

Benefits of being bilingual? The relationship between pupils’ perceptions of teachers’ appreciation of their home language and executive functioning

We aimed to investigate whether bilingual pupils’ perceptions of their teachers’ appreciation of their Home Language (HL) were of influence on bilingual cognitive advantages. We examined whether Dutch bilingual primary school pupils who speak either German or Turkish at home differed in perceptions of their teacher’s appreciation of their HL, and whether these differences could explain differences between the two groups in executive functioning. Executive functioning was measured through computer tasks, and perceived HL appreciation through orally administered questionnaires. The relationship between the two was assessed with regression analyses. German-Dutch pupils perceived more appreciation of their home language from their teacher than Turkish-Dutch pupils did. This difference partly explained differences in executive functioning. Besides, we replicated bilingual advantages in nonverbal working memory and switching, but not in verbal working memory or inhibition. This study demonstrates that bilingual advantages cannot be dissociated from the influence of the sociolinguistic context of the classroom. Thereby, it stresses the importance of culturally responsive teaching.

Longitudinal effects of parental and child personality characteristics on parenting1

This study examined which parent and adolescent Big Five characteristics were related to parenting. Mothers (N = 467) and fathers (N = 428) reported on their personality using the Five Factor Personality Inventory, adolescents (N = 475) assessed their personality with the Hierarchical Personality Inventory for Children. Two types of parenting, overreactive discipline and warmth, were assessed two years later by parent self-reports, partner-reports and adolescent-reports, from which multi-informant factors were created. Results indicate that parental personality was more relevant for predicting overreactivity, and parent and adolescent personality were similarly relevant for predicting warmth. Associations were mostly similar for mothers and fathers of daughters and sons. Particularly parent and adolescent agreeableness, parent emotional stability, and adolescent extraversion were important predictors for both parenting behaviors. This knowledge about the individual characteristics that explain why parents parent the way they do can help the development of effective, individualized parenting interventions.

Pedagogical authority is not a matter of epistemic authority. Against the scientification of pedagogy

I argue in this paper that upbringing and education do not profit from having become objects of scientific investigation. Epistemic authority, the typical kind of product of the sciences, has not much of a role to play in pedagogical relationships. This is mainly because such relationships are predominantly arranged around what I call ‘normative expectations’. Such expectations are not grounded in knowledge of causal or instrumental patterns but are determined in a practice of mutually ascribing and undertaking obligations and entitlements. Epistemic authority would have to be based on a model of such practices, but using this kind of knowledge-based authority in such practices does disturb the practice due to looping effects. As a result of such looping effects pedagogical relationships are, from a scientific point of view, essentially moving targets. This does not mean that upbringing and education do not need serious intellectual attention. They do. But such attention should be grounded in common sense, rather than in a scientistic attempt to replace common sense.